​In Exodus 34, God allows Moses to experience God’s holy presence. What is interesting is that we receive no description of what God looked like, but simply a description of God’s character, which can only be seen in His work—His action among the people. Here is what happened.

34:5 Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him; and he called out his own name, Yahweh. 6 The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out,“Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy!I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.7 I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin.But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren;the entire family is affected-- even children in the third and fourth generations.”

The text says that Moses immediately fell on his face in worship of God. There has been much debate on what it means to lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren, however we must also view God’s unfailing love that lasts much longer than his discipline…to a thousand generations.

From a biblical perspective, this is not only the introduction of God, but is the repeated reputation of Yahweh throughout the Old Testament. It is important to memorize and to understand that this is the way God wants to be known. In fact, when we meet up with Jesus in the New Testament, it is this character of Yahweh that we see in Jesus as he interacts with his own new people.